


Abnur Tharn Versus Emotions

by TypingBosmer



Series: Chronicles of Tharnia [3]
Category: Elder Scrolls Online
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Denial of Feelings, Elsweyr, F/M, Friends With Benefits, Illustrations, Mild Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-17
Updated: 2020-01-27
Packaged: 2020-12-21 01:48:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 3,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21066776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TypingBosmer/pseuds/TypingBosmer
Summary: A collection of little drabbles and drawings following the relationship of Abnur Tharn and Vorozhba 'Ro' gra-Gatlok, an Orc priestess of Dibella who was kidnapped by the Worm Cult and sacrificed to Molag Bal when rendering her services to him. Tharn feels rather responsible for her fate, quite in spite of himself - and it only gets worse from there.





	1. Projection

‘You lying, traitorous skeever!’

Lyris Titanborn - now much, much closer to her proper battle-ready self, the despondent husk of Coldharbour all but shattered - lurches forward, jabbing an accusing finger at the purple silhouette that hovers in front of her. As she moves from where she was standing, her companion comes into a clearer view of the projection - a tattooed, red-haired Orcish woman all in white, bulkily muscular and so tall that she nearly reaches Lyris’ shoulder (which, considering that Lyris has giant blood still flowing strongly through her veins, is quite impressive).

And all of a sudden, the mage’s ghostly figure twists and crumples, like clothing scraped against the washboard. The odd effect only lasts a moment, however - a fraction of one, truly. In between one blink and the next, the summoned projection stabilizes, and the mage’s voice declares, with a tone of a researcher commenting on the fascinating behaviour of some bug or other.

'Ah. You live’.

The Orc tosses her head up.

'Yes. You did not quite succeed in killing me’, she remarks, perfectly calm.

'Please let us settle this once and for all,’ he protests, not raising his voice but still articulating every word emphatically. 'It was not my intention to let you come to harm. The Worm Cultists that took you surprised me as much as they did you - and I was… invited to Coldharbour shortly thereafter. We are on the same side, and your survival is indeed a fortunate development. But now is not the time to mull over this - let us return to what I was trying to tell Titanborn here…'

***

Later on, in the safety of the Harborage, as Lyris is settling in for the night, allowing herself the small luxury of nestling in her bedroll with no Dremora guard looming overhead, she frowns and, without warning, shoots a question at her new Orc friend.

'Did you see Tharn’s projection sort of… wobble when he noticed you behind my back? Do you know what it might have been? Could it be a Daedra or something, pretending to be Tharn? Sending us on a wild guar chase?’

The Orc freezes up, fingers clasped around the spine of a tome she has been meaning to pull out from the Prophet’s modest bookcase.

'I do not think so. It must have been just an interference. Magic is fueled by emotion as much as concentration and technical skill… So maybe he could not control it for a moment because…’

Lyris, who seemed relieved by the first part of the Orc’s answer, chortles.

'Because he felt an emotion? Abnur Tharn? Gods no! I don’t mean to be blunt, since you two seem to have history - what kind, I don’t want to know - but that bastard would not know an emotion if it thrashed him square in the jaw’.

The Orc smiles.

'Yes, you are right. And I do not mind that about him. What happened between us was enough to please my goddess regardless. He was probably distracted by some background noise; or Mannimarco’s minions sneaking up on him’.


	2. The Ugliest Princess

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A chibi illustration of Ro rescuing Abnur from Coldharbour. She has long forgiven him for the Worm Cult mess, methinks.


	3. Return from the Halls of Torment

‘I trust you do not care for me,’ Tharn says, abruptly and unexpectedly, as soon as he and Ro are out of the other Companions’ earshot. His jaw is set rigidly, and his glare nearly spears her.

She starts, nearly tripping up (Tharn extends a hand, unthinking, but that scarcely has anything to do with the conversation). Then, she draws a breath. And begins to speak, with measured caution, her tall green forehead creased in mild concern.

‘You know that is not true. Despite everything, you are my friend; one of my most… gratifying lovers, too We have been through so much together. Slaying Daedra. Exploring arcane secrets. Getting tangled in that curtain at the back of the Mages’ Guildhall’.

His lips twitch, quite in spite of himself; but he quickly bites down the smirk and persists.

‘Yes, quite - but beyond that. As one of the few people I have met who has any approximation of a brain, you would avoid… sentimental fallacies, would you not? You would not get mired in that mushy nonsense that nearly destroyed Sahan?’

She dips her head, understanding flashing in her amber eyes.

‘Ah, you mean when the Duchess took the guise of Lyris?’

He makes a vague flinching grimace that she interprets as confirmation. After that, a few moments pass in silence; she makes an answer only after holding his gaze, just as she did when they first met, carefully reading into him. Deducing what he wants to hear.

‘No, I do not think I have a weakness like that. For anyone. I am too busy serving my goddess; and saving the people of Tamriel from themselves. That leaves little time for… mush’.

‘Good,’ he says, turning away from her - perhaps to examine the road ahead. 

‘Good. We shall proceed as usual then’.


	4. To Summerset

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The moment she hears that some Altmer disown their children for not meeting specific beauty standards, Ro decides that this is an affront to Dibella (because who are mortals to decide in the place of a Divine who is beautiful and who is not?). Before the ink on Queen Ayrenn's open borders decree can even dry, the Orc already makes a beeline for Summerset to find new loving homes for as many young 'hulkynd' as she can.
> 
> It would have been an easy trip to make, had not hideous creatures started crawling out of the sea. And some people do not appreciate being left behind in the Harborage in the current state of events.

‘Stop pacing, will you?’ Lyris snaps, looking up from her lute, which she has been tinkering with, trying to fix a loosened string. ‘Yes, there are all sorts of ugly crawlies flooding Summerset right now, but Ro is one tough Orc. Smart too. She will save her orphans, tie the uglies into knots, and come back in one piece’.

Tharn - who has indeed been tracing an endless loop across the Harborage - stops so abruptly that his heels carve up the ground.

‘I would laugh at what you are implying, Titanborn,’ he says, his back rigid and his hands clasped tight behind it, 'But that would give you the illusion that you have a sense of humour. It is hardly any of my business that the Vestige chooses to run off and throw herself into danger when… there are people in need of her’.

Lyris sets her lute aside - and good thing too; had she kept her hands on it, its sides might have caved in.

'And by people you mean yourself, don’t you?’ she says, scrutinizing him contemptuously from head to toe. 'Gods, you are disgusting. Can’t you hold it in - or go find someone else to play two-backed horker with, then maybe you’ll calm down’.

'Perhaps I will,’ Tharn curls his lips and heads for the cavern entrance. 'Or at the very least, find a drink sufficient enough to drown out… your nagging’.

* * *

When silence falls, absorbing the final echo of the final sigh, cushioning the slowed-down rises and falls of their chests, they sink into the afterglow like into a clear, sun-speckled pool - one of those warm coral shallows that make this remote island so scenic. The bliss does not last long, though. Now that they can hear what is going on beyond the tight circle of heat that they formed with their bodies, it is not hard to discern some distant voice crying out, with a high-pitched Altmeri accent,

‘Oh gods, they’ve stopped!’

That is followed by a lot of grumbling, the word 'nebarra’ breaking through again and again.

Tharn slants his eyes lazily towards the entrance of the inn room.

'Ah. We neglected to cast a muffling spell, did we?’ he says in a slow drawl.

There is not a shadow of guilt in his expression; on the contrary, the crooked smirk with which he studies the door makes him look rather smug.

Ro stirs beside him, pushing herself up with a creak of the mattress (which by now is almost entirely bared, with the sheets having twisted into some curious Hermaeus Mora effigy at the foot of the bed), and decides to start cleaning both of them up. Since her little rest has been interrupted either way.

'We neglected a lot of things,’ she murmurs, glancing up briefly at the messy trail that leads from the door to the bed.

Her tunic, pooled on the floor like a clump of half-thawed snow.

That Mages Guild robe Tharn wears out in the street as a precaution (even though the Worm Cult does not seem to have reached as far as Summerset - the place has a Daedra problem of an entirely… different nature).

One of her bracers, flashing a pale gold in the rays of… is it morning sun? Or afternoon? Early evening?

An overturned stool that one of them must have shoved at, oblivious, on their spinning, struggling, breathless journey across the room.

Tharn hmms, still as smugly, under his breath, rolling his shoulders back as the stream of Ro’s cleansing magic washes over him. She shifts closer to cup his face in her large green hand, still glowing and tingling with an arcane charge. She intends to take care of those little scratches around his mouth - a mark left when her Orcish tusks rammed into his skin… But instead, freezes. Remembering.

Remembering how hard he pressed against her, ready to topple her on her back with the push of his much smaller, lighter body. How greedily he drank her in, scarcely surfacing for air, entwining with her tighter and tighter, as if he were… Afraid.

'I apologize if I made you worry,’ she says, drawing back. 'When I stopped sending my ghost cat with letters to the Harborage. When I travelled here on a mission for Dibella, I did not expect to become to… Overloaded with the island’s problems’.

He arcs an eyebrow.

'You are blathering absolute nonsense. I thought you preferred to make love sober’.

'You think it would take wine or skooma to say something like this?’ she tilts her head to scrutinize him from her massive height (their size difference is obvious even when she is sitting, and he is sprawled across the bed beside her). 'To assume that my... friend is concerned for me?'

'What else?’ he retorts, his blue eyes crisp as ice. 'I dare say you have come to understand me quite well. So you should know better. We have been over this, after all. I never worry. I assume the worst by default and come prepared - but there is nothing… deeply personal about that’.

'You did travel all the way here’.

He rolls his eyes, scoffing.

'A drunken impulse. I may have overestimated the potency of that new brew they started serving at the Rosy Lion’.

She sighs, and leans in again, caressing away the last of the scratch marks with her healing touch.

'Well, thank the Divines for the new brew, at least,’ she whispers somewhere into his sideburns. 'I would have been an Orc steak if you had not arrived when you did to turn the tide of battle’.

'Yes, I made quite an impressive entrance, didn’t I? But that was pure self-preservation, my dear Vestige. Titanborn would have chased me around with a troll club, had I come back carrying your dead body,’ Tharn quips… And then, without warning, wraps his arms across her broad back and pulls her into a kiss.

And, again, his kiss, and the grip of his clawing fingers, is a bit too hard. A bit too desperate. A bit too… deeply personal.


	5. Flowers of Dibella

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little illustration that features the tusk marks mentioned in the previous chapter.


	6. By the Sea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During the ascent up the Crystal Tower, Ro manages to sustain Leythen’s shattering life force through powerful healing magic, but is left horribly drained by that, plus the fight with Nocturnal (albeit, since he is now alive, Leythen does help her there). Preparing for the worst as he does, Abnur is convinced that this will kill her.

He stumbles into that rock - that very particular, very familiar rock - without even realizing it. He just looks up, in the middle of striding aimlessly across the beach, the slurping, brine-licked sand heaving under his feet… And sees that little blob of a coral formation that sets this rock apart from every other. Clinging to the craggy, glistening surface about an arm’s length above his eye level, it looks rather like the head of a Nord with a bulbous nose and a bushy beard.

Suddenly, the sun flares particularly bright, igniting the turquoise strip of the sea ahead of him. His eyes sting with the light, and he remembers.

Her voice, still a little breathless from taking a swim and wading back ashore. Her hand, dark-green against the white of the rock, resting on one of its many bumps. While the other is on her waist, where the drying salty droplets have added a silvery sheen to her skin. Naked, carefree, beautiful.

‘You know, this rather reminds me of my friend Rigurt. From the Nord Cultural Exchange. He fumbles a lot, but his heart is in the right place, Dibella bless him’.

'Well, would it not be educational to show him this cultural exchange between Orcs and Imperials?’ he told her back then, smirking even as she genially rolled her eyes at him.

And then, there was that wet, sun-warmed rock under his palms and knees as he pressed her against it, nearly in full armour himself (he was actually supposed to watch out for those yaghra creatures) but so impatient. Thirsty. Ever more and more so after each kiss, each long draught that he took with his tongue against her, inside her. They were sprinkled with sea salt, those kisses - and he can taste the salt now as well. His lips are parched and his face, slightly wet. From the spray of the waves.

The blue and white and pale gold of the secluded beach are slashed apart by a pulse of pink. A portal. And stepping from it, a lanky figure in a black robe. Mephala’s damned Earl. Divines spare him from bloody Altmer worshipping Daedra with names that start with the letter M.

'What part of “Do not talk to me, Leythen?” did you find unclear, exactly?’ he asks, looking at the interloper askance while his fingers curl into claws, touching the spot that, he presumes, was right about underneath her arching back. On that day. In that moment. The rhythm they had found made her heave like the sea. Green with a tint of silver. Powerful. Beckoning him to become lost in her. Warm. Alive.

The elf winces, battling through the very much reciprocated dislike as though through a mouthful of bad wine.

'Tharn, I… I understand… What you must be going through’.

'You understand nothing,’ he hisses, his jaw set hard, his hand now a fist.

'How much did you lose? One child? I have lost dozens more. Children. Spouses. Lovers. Friends. To age, to war, to assassins, to their own stupidity. So do not drape yourself in your grief and flap it around like a dramatic cloak. Get on with it. Make it official’.

He should not have let any of this slip. He should not have lost composure, hinted at weakness. Especially not in front of someone attuned to the Web Spinner.

But then again, he should not have come to Summerset in the first place. Should not have followed the Orc as she decided to make use of the open borders and rescue a few Altmer children that had been disowned and cast out for not meeting their parents’ ridiculous beauty standards. And then wound up entangled in yet another invasion of monstrous creatures.

Out of boredom, he told himself when he downed the last of his many drinks and hopped on one of the fleet of boats bringing new and new outsiders to Summerset. He had followed her out of boredom. Well, he might have done something else out of boredom. It is not like he contributed much; it is not like his presence - however pleasurable - kept her from coming to harm.

Might have stayed in the Harborage and let the news reach him there. Might have done without these few farewell trysts in tiny inn rooms (though he supposes the outrage on the sour, prim Altmer staff’s faces at the sight of his underclothes on the bannister will be a good enough memory to keep) and against the rocks by the sea.

Either way, he will do without it all from now on. They will all do without it. Varen has other heroes up his ragged sleeve. And he has other lovers. Always will have.

Pity about the younglings, though. He could pull some strings to get the gaggle adopted. Magic runs strong through Altmer blood, and there should be a few Imperial familiae interested in becoming kin with the children of Summerset, regardless of oddly shaped ears or conspicuous birthmarks. He owes the Orc as much, after she pleasured him so many times.

The elf frowns.

'Wait, what do you think I am here to tell you? That she died?’

'Is that not what happens when one extends one’s life force to pull back a self-important Altmer who decided to play hero and almost got disintegrated?’

He says this entire retort in one breath, hoping that the sound of his own voice will drown out the lurching of his heart.

Leythen makes a small choking noise at the back of his throat.

'I blame myself as much as you blame me, Tharn. But that is not the point. The point is that she will live. The worst is already behind her. I have sent word to her children, and to her other favoured lovers, and they are gathering together, to be there for her during her convalescence… But you… You fled’.

His clenched hand relaxes. The rumble of the sea resounds through his ears, deafening him - and then recedes.

'I do not flee,’ he says, and the lightness with which the snark comes to him makes his lopsided smirk linger all the more.

'I retreat strategically. Had your opinion mattered to me, I would have been insulted’.

He waits until his heartbeat completely steadies, and concludes, with a perfect nonchalance if he does say so himself,

'There is a book I have been meaning to finish reading, and I suppose at the bedside of one of my associates is as good a place to do that as any’.

Leythen shots a questioning glance at him, but he weathers it without a flinch. Just with one eyebrow raised a fraction.

The spray of the sea waves has stopped prickling at his eyes. He will ensure that it does not happen again. Not even when he sees his Orc. His Ro. He has a book to read, after all.


	7. Rimmen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have decided that Ro is the half-sister of another Orc of mine, a sweet, dainty maiden known as Durgakh the Elf-Like (she is featured in a series of her own, Finding You Can Change). They were quite close growing up, and both ended up leaving the stronghold and supporting each other, so naturally, the aftermath of Euraxia's death is something that Ro relates to.

‘Abnur,’ Ro begins cautiously, putting the kind of stress on his name that she never did when calling to him in the heat of passion, or rolling her eyes at some of his _most assuredly_ brilliant ideas, or even checking on him across the battlefield.

‘…About your sister…’

‘Half-sister,’ he corrects her. Too abruptly.

Their eyes do not meet - close as she stands to him, he refuses to look at her directly - so she studies his profile instead, tries to read the unreadable in the creases on his brow and at the corner of his tightly pursed mouth.

And then, she thinks of the spindly little girl who grew up beside her in their home stronghold, the child of the hearthwife in the clan where her own mother was huntswife. Bony where Ro was heavy, black-haired where Ro was vivid ginger, with flakes of silver in her eyes where hers sparked with gold. And yet, inseparable from her.

She thinks of the flowers they braided into each other’s messy little manes. Of the shadows they cast on the longhouse wall, head thrown back in laughter. Of the letters they write each other still, no matter how many provinces of Tamriel or planes of Oblivion stretch in between them.

She thinks - and does not say anything more to Tharn. Merely reaches out to touch his hand, which he jerks away. Too abruptly.


	8. Busted!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Presumed dead after the events of Dragonhold, Abnur Tharn disguises himself as a beggar and sneaks into his own funeral to listen to the eulogies. Ro, however, will have none of his antics!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For what Abnur has been up to following the magical explosion that supposedly claimed his life, see the next work in the series.


End file.
